Posts Tagged ‘Conservatives’
Labour will kill the recovery with their tax on jobs UK
We will stop Labour’s damaging NIC increase
Monday, March 29 2010
The Conservatives have announced that a Conservative Government will stop Labour’s tax rise on jobs by cutting waste.
Stopping the planned increases in National Insurance Contributions will result in 7 out of 10 working people being better off.
A Conservative Government will take immediate action to start cutting Government waste, in order to spend £6 billion less in 2010-11 than Labour’s plans.
“The re-election of a Labour Government under Gordon Brown – with more debt, waste and taxes – will bring us a new recession”, George Osborne said, speaking alongside Ken Clarke and Phillip Hammond.
“Labour will kill the recovery with their tax on jobs. We will cut Labour waste to stop it.”
Former Government advisers Sir Peter Gershon and Dr Martin Read, now members of the Conservatives’ Public Sector Productivity Advisory Board, advise that savings of £12 billion across all departmental spending are possible in-year without affecting the quality of front line services.
Having identified these savings the Conservatives can now commit to stop Labour’s tax rise on working people and jobs at the same time as reducing the deficit faster:
Labour are planning to raise Employees National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for everyone earning over £20,000. We will stop this increase altogether for everyone earning under £35,000 by raising the primary threshold at which people start paying NICs by £24 a week, and raising the Upper Earnings Limit by £29 a week.
Relative to Labour’s plans everyone liable for Employees NICs earning between £7,100 and £45,400 – which is 7 out of 10 working people – will be up to £150 better off a year under the Conservatives. Lower earners will get the greatest benefit as a percentage of their earnings. Nobody will be worse off.
Labour are also planning to raise Employers NICs for everyone earning over £5,700. This is a tax on jobs that will undermine the recovery. We will raise the secondary threshold at which employers start paying NICs by £21 a week, saving employers up to £150 for every person they employ relative to Labour’s plans. This will reduce the cost of Labour’s tax rise on employers by more than half.
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Obama rudely snubs Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu
For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.
“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.
Left to talk among themselves Mr Netanyahu and his aides retreated to the Roosevelt Room. He spent a further half-hour with Mr Obama and extended his stay for a day of emergency talks to try to restart peace negotiations. However, he left last night with no official statement from either side. He returned to Israel yesterday isolated after what Israeli media have called a White House ambush for which he is largely to blame.
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Sources said that Mr Netanyahu failed to impress Mr Obama with a flow chart purporting to show that he was not responsible for the timing of announcements of new settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Mr Obama was said to be livid when such an announcement derailed the visit to Israel by Joe Biden, the Vice-President, this month and his anger towards Israel does not appear to have cooled.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, cast doubt on minor details in Israeli accounts of the meeting but did not deny claims that it amounted to a dressing down for the Prime Minister, whose refusal to freeze settlements is seen in Washington as the main barrier to resuming peace talks.
The Likud leader has to try to square the rigorous demands of the Obama Administration with his nationalist, ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, who want him to stand up to Washington even though Israel needs US backing in confronting the threat of a nuclear Iran.
“The Prime Minister leaves America disgraced, isolated and altogether weaker than when he came,” the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz said.
In their meeting Mr Obama set out expectations that Israel was to satisfy if it wanted to end the crisis, Israeli sources said. These included an extension of the freeze on Jewish settlement growth beyond the ten-month deadline next September, an end to building projects in east Jerusalem and a withdrawal of Israeli forces to positions held before the second intifada in September 2000.
Newspaper reports recounted how Mr Netanyahu looked “excessively concerned and upset” when he pulled out a flow chart to show Mr Obama how Jerusalem planning permission worked and how he could not have known that the announcement that hundreds more homes were to be built would be made when Mr Biden arrived in Jerusalem.
Mr Obama then suggested that Mr Netanyahu and his staff stay at the White House to consider his proposals so that if he changed his mind he could inform the President right away. “I’m still around,” the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot quoted Mr Obama as saying. “Let me know if there is anything new.”
With the atmosphere so soured by the end of the evening, the Israelis decided that they could not trust the telephone line they had been lent for their consultations. Mr Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, his Defence Minister, went to the Israeli Embassy to ensure that the Americans were not listening in.
The meeting came barely a day after Mr Obama’s health reform victory. Israel had calculated that he would be too tied up with domestic issues to focus seriously on the Middle East.
Its a pity that Obama is taking such a line with a country that has been a sure ally all these years. Perhaps he thinks America will be safer without Israel. Either way its a betrayal of a close friend. Then again Obama is a liberal so what do we expect.
Jim Ferguson
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Empty promises and an empty Budget from an empty Labour Government UK
David Cameron responds to Labour’s empty Budget
Wednesday, March 24 2010
David Cameron has responded in the House of Commons to the Chancellor’s presentation of the last Budget before the general election.
He said Labour “have made a complete mess of the British economy and they are totally failing to clean it up”.
Cameron set out the big argument in British politics: Labour say “don’t do anything before the election, let’s just sit tight and keep our fingers crossed”, and the Conservatives say “we need real action to get our economy moving – and urgently”.
Highlighting new policies that copied existing Conservative proposals, such as the stamp duty cut and new university places, he said the “only new ideas in British politics are coming from this side of the House” and that “the only thing Labour bring are debt, waste and taxes”.
The figures that stands out above any other, he said, was that Labour have “doubled the national debt, and they’re going to double it again”.
Outlining the Government’s failure Cameron criticised “all those schemes that they launched with great fanfare” for failing to help enough people. He also drew comparisons on the state of the economy when Labour came to power to the present – including the huge increase in the debt and deficit, and a falling down the global league tables in terms of competitiveness, tax and regulation.
We need a credible plan to deal with Britain’s record debts”, he said, criticising the Chancellor’s repeated hope to halve the deficit by 2014 as giving us a deficit “almost as big as when Denis Healey went to the IMF in the 1970s”.
Moving on to the delay in dealing with the deficit, he said “the risk to recovery is not in dealing with the deficit now, it’s in not dealing with the deficit now”. Cameron said that “every family knows that when your debts mount up, you need to start paying them off or things will only get worse”, and that it is time for the Government to learn the same lessons”.
“The Prime Minister and Chancellor faced a choice – between bold action in an election year or playing politics. Once again, they chose politics.”
Cameron also emphasised the need “to show the world that we are back open for business”, saying that because Labour “flunked the difficult decisions on spending, they are raising tax after tax after tax – all after the election”. “These are the ticking tax bombshells timed to go off the day after the election and that will destroy our recovery.”
He said that the greatest risk to Britain’s economic recovery was another Labour government. “No one has yet thought of a question to which the answer is five more years of this Prime Minister”, he said.
“We need a credible plan to cut the deficit. We need an unleashing of enterprise across the nation. We need a plan to boost employment through radical welfare and school reform. If ever there was a time when this country needed a radical change of direction it is now.”
He concluded that Britain needs a Conservative government “to clean up the mess made by this Labour Government”.
“Britain needs new energy, leadership and values to get this country moving again. That’s the argument we’ll take to the country the moment the Prime Minister has been forced by the law of the land to call the election he has avoided for so long.”
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Britains internal security damaged by Google street view – MI5 – UK
At a time when Britain is perceived as weak by those hostile to the British way of life thanks to Labour’s mishandling of most things to do with the management of Britain I find it incredulous to see the latest reports that suggest that Britain’s most sensitive sites are listed like this.
Surely even Cash Gordon must know the risk he is putting the United Kingdom under by not ensuring adequate protection of sensitive military sites. !
Jim Ferguson
By Gordon Thomas
LONDON – British security chief Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, has warned the Brown government that the country’s most sensitive military and security bases have been “seriously damaged by Google’s Street View.”
Agents with MI5 are satisfied that thousands of images have been downloaded by U.K.-based Muslims, suspected associates of al-Qaida. The images show close-ups of Britain’s atomic weapons research center and the nation’s doughnut-shaped eavesdropping center at Cheltenham.
MI5 has found its buildings across Britain included in the “Street View” service.
Google has been warned that placing any of the images on its website contravenes the Official Secrets Act. The penalty of any breach can carry lengthy prison sentences under British law.
“This week Google has removed most of the images. But the damage has been done. The images are now in the hands of suspect terrorists,” Evans has told the government.
One site is at Menwith Hill, in the north of England near Harrogate. Its giant “golf balls” are linked to satellites and are clearly visible. The image shows the access roads to the “golf balls.” The U.K. shares the base with America’s National Security Agency.
The golf ball shapes are the very core of the base’s role as a global eavesdropper. Known as radomes, each shape is positioned on a carefully aligned course known as the “Runway,” which allows them to intercept messages from communications from space.
Coated in toughened Teflon to shed the rain that constantly develops across the North Sea, the “golf balls” are each equipped with computers which interdict the networks as they bounce their messages around the world.
Another image that would be of “high value to a terrorist group is the Hanslope Park base near Milton Keynes, where MI6 officers analyze data from GCHQ,” said an intelligence source.
One of the most guarded entrances in London – Thames House, the headquarters of MI5, clearly is pinpointed.
“Until recently the Google Map published information only on major British cities, [giving] no more than a broadspan view of the area. Now it has clear images of almost every street,” said the intelligence source.
Another facility – secret until now – is the SAS Counter-Terrorism training center in Pontrilas in Herefordshire.
The Google site has photographed it to reveal there one of the SAS aircraft used for special forces training exercises.
Another top-secret facility on the website is the exterior of the new ORION Laser Research Facility at Aldermaston, the atomic weapons research center in Berkshire.
Across the Irish Sea, on the edge of a Belfast housing estate, is the Ulster facility of MI5′s Loughside headquarters. It is from there that the Security Service monitors Irish extremists.
“If they didn’t know where we were they most certainly do now,” said an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland.
The Special Boat Service – classified as Highly Secret in Ministry of Defense manuals – has on the website an easily readable sign in red outside. It reads: “Prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act. Loitering, sketching, photography forbidden.”
Faced with the full fury of MI5, a Google spokesman said that, “if mistakes are made we will remove the images. We are unaware of any official concerns about security. But we are happy to discuss any issues as they arise.”
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Military chiefs savage Gordon Brown over incorrect evidence Iraq enquiry – Humiliation for British Government
This is a serious blow for Brown and his discredited Labour Government. Even the very top brass of the British armed forces cannot stomach his outright dishonesty and disrespect for our armed forces.
The sooner our brave men and woman of the United Kingdom’s armed forces have a Conservative Government they can trust the better.
Jim Ferguson
PM Admits Iraq Inquiry Defence Spending Error
6:54pm UK, Wednesday March 17, 2010
Miranda Richardson, Sky News Online
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has admitted giving incorrect evidence to the Iraq Inquiry on defence spending.
Mr Brown told Sir John Chilcot’s panel that the defence budget had risen “in real terms every year”.
But House of Commons reseach shows Mr Brown’s claim was wrong, and he has now written to Sir John to correct it.
The PM said that the Treasury had agreed spending with the MoD for 2002, 2004 and 2007.
“The Iraqi expenditure was being met, but at the same time the defence budget was rising in real terms every year,” he said.
Repeating his claim, he told them: “The spending review of 2004 gave the Ministry of Defence a rising level of real spending, moving from 1.2% to 1.4% in real terms each year.”
But a research note prepared by the House of Commons Library in October last year showed defence expenditure had fallen in real terms in four financial years since Labour came to power in 1997: 1997/98 (-2.2%); 1999/2000 (-0.4%); 2004/5 (-0.7%); and 2006/7 (-0.1%).
In real terms it is 12% higher, but I do accept that in one or two years defence expenditure did not rise in real terms.
Gordon Brown
The average annual increase between 1997 and 2009 was 2.7%, it said, but noted that “this figure is likely to have been distorted by current operations”.
Asked at Prime Minister’s Questions whether he would correct the record, Mr Brown said: “Yes. I am already writing to Sir John Chilcot about this issue.
“Because of operational fluctuations in the way the money is spent, expenditure has risen in cash terms every year, in real terms it is 12% higher, but I do accept that in one or two years defence expenditure did not rise in real terms.”
The Prime Minister’s evidence to the Inquiry sparked condemnation from senior military figures.
Lord Boyce – who was the head of the military at the time of the invasion – called him “disingenuous” and insisted the MoD was starved of funds.
“He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous,” Admiral Boyce told The Times newspaper.
“It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed
“There may have been a 1.5% increase in the defence budget but the MoD was starved of funds.”
Lord Boyce’s predecessor Lord Guthrie accused Mr Brown of costing soldiers their lives by failing to fund the army properly.
The Tories described Mr Brown’s admission as a “humiliating climbdown”.
Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said: “He has made repeated and fundamentally false claims, misleading Parliament, the public and worst of all the Armed Forces and their families.”
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Brown had “taken the first opportunity” to tell MPs about the mistake.
<a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=2001437c67″>Prime Minister’s Questions</a>
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Fuel prices set to rocket – Highland business at serious risk Scotland UK
Business and hard pressed people across the Highlands face even greater hardship due to fuel prices that are set to soar. Some estimates suggest that the more rural parts of scotland will face prices of around £1.30 per litre.
This is totally unacceptable and as if we wern’t facing enough problems this latest bombshell may see more and more people struggling to cope. How will penshioners manage to heat their homes ? The fact that the vast majority of the cost is tax that goes straight into the Labour Governments pockets is scandalous when they can see the pressure that people are already under thanks to Labours recession.
And what of the LibDem MP Danny Alexander. What will he do ? Not much. Not much a minority party MP like him can do anyway.
This general election will give the people of the Highlands an opportunity to elect an MP who will be able to deliver.
If the country is fortunate enough to elect a Conservative Government then I as the MP for this region will be in a far stronger position to bring real help and support to the people of the Highlands of Scotland instead of the empty weak words of the Liberals who can only whine and wring their hands in helplessness.
Jim Ferguson
Petrol Price Woe For Drivers As Costs Soar
4:28pm UK, Tuesday March 16, 2010
James Jordan, Sky News Online
Petrol prices could reach an eye-watering 120p per litre later this year, the AA is warning.
The organisation is claiming that unleaded fuel could even top the price, equivalent to £5.41 a gallon, and Alistair Darling is being urged to delay the introduction of a planned 3p increase in petrol duty due to come in on April 1.
AA president Edmund King said: “The UK is barely out of recession, yet petrol prices threaten to rise to record prices seen during the boom of 2008 – shortly before the collapse into recession.
“If families, drivers on fixed incomes and those on low pay were unable to cope with record prices then, they are even less likely now.”
AA research found an average family with two cars is paying £52 a month more to fill up now than a year ago.
Motorists are being legally mugged at the forecourt by petrol companies.
Lindsay Hoyle, Labour MP on the Commons business select committee
The average petrol price in the UK is 115.9p for a litre of unleaded and 116.6p for a litre of diesel.
Even if the 3p increase is withdrawn, the price paid by drivers could soon hit 120p a litre – £5.41 a gallon – according to the organisation.
This would overtake the previous high of 119.7p of July 2008.
The AA said the price increases were caused by the rise in the price of wholesale gasoline since the end of January.
Lindsay Hoyle, the senior Labour MP on the Commons business select committee, said it was “a complete disgrace”.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “Yes, crude oil has gone up this year, but nothing like the rise in petrol prices. Motorists are being legally mugged at the forecourt by petrol companies.”
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Unite Union has an unhealthy grip of Labour
Charlie Whelan’s new militant tendency
Tuesday, March 16 2010
Michael Gove has spoken about “Charlie Whelan’s New Militant Tendency” in a speech setting out how dependent the Labour Party is on Unite – Britain’s biggest trade union.
His speech marked the launch of a new document that shines a light on how Unite has taken advantage of Labour’s near bankruptcy and the departure of Tony Blair to gain an unprecedented grip on the party.
Under the political direction of Charlie Whelan, Unite is using its financial and organisation muscle to drive government policy and build a Labour Party very different to the one that appealed to Middle England and won three general elections. Instead, with Gordon Brown as leader, there has been a reversal of much-needed public service reforms, a return to industrial militancy and a regression into atavistic class war rhetoric.
“There can be few more powerful forces of conservatism opposed to the flexibility, freedom and choice of the post-bureaucratic age than the Whelanist Tendency now in control of the Labour party”, Gove said.
“Labour’s re-unionisation has put them in bed with the past at a time when it is crucial that this country wakes up to the future.”
The document sets out in detail the way in which, in the three years since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, Unite has spent more than £11 million of its members’ money on buying influence within the Labour Party.
This extends from placing a key union operative inside 10 Downing Street to taking effective control of many cash-strapped constituency Labour parties and installing Unite activists and officials as prospective Parliamentary candidates.
Gove said that “the last thing we need is a political system where genuine participation in democracy is out-muscled by union power”.
“This election will decide the future of this country and Labour represents a move backwards, not forwards”, he added.
Read Michael Gove’s speech in full
You can read our dossier on “Charlie Whelan’s New Militant Tendency” in the document reader below, or alternatively click here to download a copy in PDF format.
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Brave British soldier saves lives of comrades
Soldier Lobs Taliban Grenade Back At Enemy
9:00am UK, Tuesday March 09, 2010
Damien Pearse, Sky News Online
A British soldier has saved his comrades by scooping up a live Taliban grenade and throwing it straight back at the enemy moments before it exploded.
Rifleman James McKie suffered cuts to his face after the grenade exploded
The device hit Rifleman James McKie’s platoon commander and landed at his feet during a battle in the Sangin area of Helmand Province in Afghanistan.
And as the enemy continued to pound his position from three directions the young soldier lobbed the grenade as far as he could.
“I remember thinking that if I didn’t pull this off, it was going to hurt,” he said. “But at that stage I was pretty much committed.”
Split seconds after the grenade left his hand it exploded in mid-air, firing fragments into Rifleman McKie’s face and arm.
His commander Captain Graeme Kerr suffered leg injuries and is now recovering at Selly Oak Hospital in the UK.
I remember thinking that if I didn’t pull this off, it was going to hurt. But at that stage I was pretty much committed.
Rifleman James McKie
Rifleman McKie was posted on the roof of a building when he saw the grenade. Another soldier, also on the roof, escaped unhurt.
Rifleman McKie, from Recce Platoon, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, and originally from New Zealand, described the drama.
“I heard what sounded like a mini flare come from our right where I knew there were none of our guys, so I thought this was really unusual.
“We were in a high position on a compound roof.
“There was no way you could throw yourself off and not get injured, so I made a decision to pick up the grenade and throw it off the roof.”
He went on: “My platoon has taken a lot of casualties. I really didn’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”
Rifleman McKie threw smoke to cover their withdrawal, allowing them to reach the safety of another compound.
Captain Kerr was immediately evacuated by helicopter, but Rifleman McKie was able to continue in his duties until the following day.
“I don’t feel particularly brave,” he said.
“I’m not expecting anything from my comrades … I don’t want any thanks from them. I just don’t want them to get hurt.”
Outstanding bravery which is typical of our gallant fighting forces. What a great pity this Labour Government doesnt think so. Both Labour and the sneaky LibDems have an inheritant loathing of all things patriotic.
I hope when he threw the grenade back it hit its intended targets.
Jim Ferguson
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Labour protecting Bulger killer – time to reveal his identity -UK-
I am really sick and tired of reading about the rights of despicable monsters like Jon Venables who are allowed to hide behind a wall of secrecy created by this Labour Government to protect such vile people. Labour have totally failed to protect members of the public and their shielding of this monster only prove how out of touch with public opinion they are. Their liberal soft touch justice that sees children murdered and then the killers treated to holidays and the best of treatment is sickening.
Its quite clear that they treated the two Bulger killers with kid gloves all these years no doubt with the sympathy of the LibDems who help make a mockery of British justice and who pander to evil people and gloat about their ” Rights ” but its time that the ” Rights ” of ordinary people were put first.
With rights comes responsibilities !
Jim Ferguson
Child porn claims over Bulger killer
venables recalled over suspicions, report alleges
Published: 08/03/2010
ANGRY: Denise Fergus, the mother of James Bulger
James Bulger killer Jon Venables was recalled to prison on suspicion of child pornography offences, using drugs and fears he had revealed his new identity, it was alleged yesterday.
The claims about the 27-year-old convicted murderer, made in a Sunday newspaper, came after Justice Secretary Jack Straw refused to disclose the reasons for last week’s recall, saying only they related to “extremely serious allegations”.
Senior politicians yesterday lined up to support the government’s stance. The decision was backed by David Blunkett, who as then home secretary informed MPs of the Parole Board’s decision that Venables should be released in 2001.
Writing in a Sunday newspaper, he said: “The separation between judges and politicians is critical. The idea that we should abandon it in this case is understandable coming from James’ immediate family. Even with a general election pending, the Government cannot and must not bend on this – not least because if Venables has committed a further crime, then that victim and their family deserve their day in court.”
Leader of the Commons Harriet Harman declined to comment on the reason why Venables was returned to custody. She said: “If there is a question of an offence having been committed then it needs to be properly investigated and anybody who has committed an offence needs to be brought to trial.
“We don’t want anything to happen whereby they can’t be brought to a trial because it is said they can’t get a fair trial because all the media reporting has been prejudiced.”
James’s mother Denise Fergus, 42, said yesterday Venables should lose his anonymity if he was charged with a new offence.
Her spokesman, Chris Johnson, said: “If after that, depending on the outcome of the court case, the powers that be decide that he should have some new identity yet again, then we’ll deal with that when we come to it.
“But she can’t understand why he doesn’t appear in a dock under his own name, if that’s going to be where he ends up.
“She’s appalled. She doesn’t think that he should be at liberty anyway. He should really have served a sentence of something in the order of 15 years and should be coming up for parole now. In her mind, if there has been an offence committed, it means that that could have been avoided.”
Mrs Fergus has demanded to know why Venables was put back in jail, and is meeting Mr Straw to discuss the matter.
The killer and his accomplice Robert Thompson were aged 10 when they battered two-year-old James to death in Liverpool 17 years ago.
They were both released on lifelong licence in 2001 with new identities, requiring them to obey strict conditions such as not contacting each other or returning to the city where James was killed.
Venables reportedly faces a looming return to court over the “extremely serious” allegations, causing a potential security nightmare for the authorities trying to preserve his lifelong anonymity order.
Justifying his decision not to disclose details of Venables’ recall, Mr Straw said: “I said on Wednesday that I was unable to give further details of the reasons for Jon Venables’ return to custody, because it was not in the public interest to do so.
“That view was shared by the police and the director of public prosecutions. We all feared that a premature disclosure of information would undermine the integrity of the criminal justice process, including the investigation and potential prosecution of individual(s).”
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Labours tax bombshell for local pubs UK
Community pubs facing tax bombshell
Sunday, March 7 2010
Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps has warned of a ‘tax bombshell’ faced by community pubs this April.
New research by the Conservatives reveals that Gordon Brown’s tax inspectors are hiking up business rates for local pubs across country. Friendly community pubs with darts and pool tables face the biggest threat.
This comes as figures show that a net 3,690 local pubs have closed under Labour, according to official records held by tax inspectors.
“Gordon Brown has pushed local community pubs to the wall”, Shapps said, pointing out that at the same time Labour has ignored “the binge-drinking dens that have wrecked our town centres and fuelled violent crime”.
The three key elements of the tax bombshell are:
- New tax hikes on local pubs: New analysis of Government figures slipped out before Christmas has revealed that pubs, pub restaurants, wine bars, wineries and coaching inns face above-inflation hikes in their Rateable Values – and thus their tax bills. This will be top of Brown’s above-inflation rises in alcohol duty imposed in the Budget.
- Stealth tax on pub sports: According to the tax inspectors’ guidance, features such as a pool room, skittles alley, bowling green, children’s play area and darts have been targeted. The clipboard-wielding inspectors have secretly toured pubs, recording “pool, darts or football teams playing in leagues”. Pubs showing sport will not escape, as Sky Sports will be taxed extra, Ministers have admitted.
- Stealth tax on nice pubs: The tax manuals tell the state snoopers to take photographs inside and outside the pub, and record “Does the pub appear friendly and popular?”. Factors being logged include good beer cellars/stores (thus taxing real ale), “rare and unspoilt pubs”, and beer gardens (taxing those which have ducked the smoking ban).
“Not content with a council tax revaluation to tax people’s home improvements and scenic views, Gordon Brown also wants to hammer the nice local pub with higher local taxes”, Shapps said. “Only Conservatives will stand up for the local community pub”.
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